Emerging Market ETFs Won’t Help Your Portfolio

There’s a lot of investors who buy shares in an emerging market ETF and falsely believe they’ve diversified globally.

I can’t count the number of times my clients have told me that they are, in fact, already investing in fast growing economies because they bought into some mass market ETF or mutual fund from Vanguard or iShares.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling you that these ETFs won’t go up in value over time. I’m not even saying you shouldn’t buy them. But I’d like to address a common error I feel many people make when investing overseas.

Most investors buy shares in an emerging market ETF, or a similar mutual fund, to diversify their wealth abroad. By investing in different economies and currencies, you reduce your risk by not having to rely on the performance of a single market or currency.

There’s also the expectation of higher returns. Emerging markets are called such for a reason. They typically grow faster versus developed economies, are coming into their own, and are, well… emerging.

Here’s the problem: your typical emerging market fund which your brokerage tries to sell you does neither of these things. At least not nearly as well as it should.

You Aren’t Even Investing in Emerging Markets

That’s right, you read correctly. A large percentage of stocks owned by emerging market ETFs and mutual funds are not even from emerging markets.

Just look below at the holdings of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF. This is the largest Emerging Market ETF on the planet with over US$31 billion dollars under management. 2 out the top 3 countries in invests in are from South Korea and Taiwan, accounting for over a quarter of the fund’s assets. By any measure, South Korea and Taiwan are developed nations and each have a GDP per capita exceeding that of New Zealand, Israel, and Italy’s.

Other funds, such as Vanguard’s FTSE Emerging Markets ETF, don’t do much better. They’re big fans of Taiwan for some reason. Even more bizarre is that they have exposure to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar – two of the richest nations on the planet.

You Don’t Really Want to Invest in an Emerging Market

There’s something to be said for denominating your assets into different currencies. Just ask the British who saw their net worth, in terms of many other currencies, fall by around 20% because of Brexit’s impact on the Pound.

Most emerging market ETFs and mutual funds can help you invest in other currencies. But they fall short when it comes to avoiding financial crises altogether. Most emerging economies fared even worse than the United States during the 2008 Global Recession.

Why? Although they’re different countries with different economies and currencies, they’re highly dependent on other nations for growth.

Our world is now interconnected. 7-Eleven and Starbucks can be found in almost every corner of the globe. This means that most emerging markets rely on continued investment from businesses like these to fuel their own growth.

But when the US, EU, or China enters a recession, the investment from large multinationals stops flowing in. The result is that emerging markets also enter a decline – sometimes an even worse one.

If you truly want to grow and preserve your wealth, you might want to invest in frontier markets. These rapidly growing countries have a history of skipping global crises altogether. Cambodia, for example, hasn’t had a recession in over two decades. Other frontier markets like Mongolia and Kenya boast similar performances.

These places don’t need to worry about McDonalds cutting back on expansion because they don’t have McDonalds yet. But when they inevitably arrive, the extra investment will boost the growth of these frontier markets even more.

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About Reid Kirchenbauer

Reid Kirchenbauer is the Founder of InvestAsian. He's experienced with trading stocks and buying property in Thailand, Cambodia, and elsewhere. He's been featured in publications such as Forbes, Nomad Capitalist, Property Report, and Seeking Alpha. Download his free investment guide by clicking here.